From a Paris Birthday Party to a Huppah on Lake Como: Carina & Elie’s Wedding at The Villa Erba

Author: Natali Grace Levine
Wedding date: 08/25/2025
City: Lake Como

Love Story

Some love stories begin with careful planning and deliberate intention. This one began with a birthday party, an eighteen-year-old celebrating in Paris, and a man who saw her across the room and simply walked over.
Carina is American — born in Puerto Rico, raised with German roots — and she was in Paris for her birthday when Elie first noticed her. "I saw her, went to talk to her, and since then she moved to Paris to live with me," he says. No elaboration needed. That is the whole story, told with the kind of confident simplicity that belongs to people who knew immediately and never had reason to doubt it.
After eight years together, with Paris as their foundation, their story continued with a proposal that matched the scale of everything to come: aboard the Orient Express from Paris to Venice, and then at the Aman Venice Hotel. The kind of proposal that sounds like the opening chapter of a novel — because, in a way, it was.

About Your Wedding

Elie was asked about his vision for the wedding. His answer was precise: "Exactly how it occurred — it was even better than in my dream."
The concept of the wedding was bespoke in every sense. Rather than borrowing a theme or following a trend, it was crafted entirely around two people and what they wanted their day to feel like. Entrusting Bespoke Unique Weddings with the full creative vision from the beginning, Elie and Carina saw a result that exceeded even their highest expectations.
One hundred and eighty guests. Three venues across Lake Como — Villa Erba, Villa Carminati, and Lido di Cernobbio. A year and a half of planning. A Jewish religious ceremony. And a color palette of white, green, wood, and yellow that gave the whole day a warmth and a naturalness that sat perfectly against the Italian landscape.

Morning Details

The morning of August 25th, 2025, began at Villa Erba — the same property that would hold the ceremony later that day. On one side of the villa, Carina was surrounded by the people who had known her longest: her father, her mother, and her sister. Meanwhile, Elie prepared with his best friends, as Lake Como shimmered outside every window, captured by the particular August light that made the setting feel staged for this very moment.

Bride Getting Ready

Carina's dress was by Galia Lahav — one of the most technically demanding and visually extraordinary names in bridal couture — and finding it took six months. It was discovered in Paris, which felt entirely right for a woman whose love story began there. The final look was completed with Jimmy Choo heels and a bouquet designed by the Il Profumo dei Fiori team, whose flowers ran through every element of the day's decor.

Groom Getting Ready

Elie got ready at Villa Erba in a Tom Ford tuxedo — a choice that reflected his precise and considered approach to the day. Surrounded by his best friends, he looked out at the lake, while somewhere on the other side of the villa, Carina was putting on the Galia Lahav gown that had taken half a year to find. The anticipation bridged the morning, linking their preparation.

Ceremony

The ceremony took place at Villa Erba — a Jewish religious Huppah, the tradition that Elie identifies as the key moment of the entire wedding. The Huppah is one of the most sacred rituals in Jewish marriage: the couple standing together beneath a canopy that represents the home they are building, surrounded by the people they love most.
Carina walked down the aisle to the Passacaglia in a piano version — a piece of such particular emotional weight that the choice alone tells you something about the kind of wedding this was going to be. She walked with her father. That moment — a father and his daughter moving toward the man who would take care of her — is the one that Elie says he will carry with him.
"When she walked down the aisle with her father."
The rings were brought by his nephews. Everything else was exactly as they had imagined — and then more.

Photoshoot After The Ceremony

After the Huppah, after the vows, after the moment that Elie had been moving toward for eight years, they got on a boat. Lake Como stretched out in every direction, the light doing what August light on this lake does, and Marjorie Manfre captured all of it. They moved between the water and Villa Erba, building a visual record of a day that had already exceeded every expectation.
Lake Como from the water, this time as husband and wife.

Wedding Venue & Decor

They didn't choose one venue. They chose Lake Como.
Villa Erba for the ceremony and getting ready. Villa Carminati. Lido di Cernobbio. Three locations across the same lake, each one adding a different dimension to the day, and all of them chosen with the help of the Bespoke Unique Weddings team, who had guided every decision from the beginning. "Thanks to Bespoke Unique Weddings," Elie says simply, when asked how the venue was selected. That single line tells you everything about the level of trust that defined this working relationship.
The palette — white, green, wood tones, and yellow — gave the decor a warmth and an organic quality that sat naturally against the Italian landscape. Nothing fought with the lake or the light. Everything amplified it. Personalized details ran through every element, all of them handled by the same team that had been the invisible architecture of the entire day.

Real Wedding Couple's Advice

"If you book your wedding at Villa Erba, we would advise you to really focus on a festive dinner and a great atmosphere at the dinner area, because the main room is so big that it is hard to keep it full all the time and to keep people dancing. You can fit 600 people in it. So we would highly suggest making it a great dinner party.
Regarding Lake Como more generally, we recommend considering transportation, given traffic, the distances between locations, and the possibility of sudden weather changes. Prepare a plan B in case of rain or bad weather."

Reception

"180 guests, three venues, one lake — and a team that made it all look effortless."
The reception moved through the day with the ease of something perfectly planned — special food and drinks, a wedding cake by Bespoke Unique Weddings, and live music and DJ by FOMO Production that gave the evening its rhythm and its soul. The atmosphere was shaped by the lighting and sound design of Blu Notte Eventi, while Cara Content Studio captured the behind-the-scenes moments that no photographer or camera crew ever quite reaches. The video, captured by Benoît Saintemarie Films, holds all of it now — the lake, the light, the Huppah, the faces of the people who came from everywhere to be there.